Peter And The Wolf

(album: Peter And The Wolf - 1988)

Hello, Boys and Girls.
This is a story that I like to call, Peter and the Wolf.
Are you sitting comfortably?
Are you!?
Good, then let's begin...

Each character is represented by a different instrument of the synthesized orchestra.

For instance, the part of Billy the Bird is played by a flute, like this...

The part of Bruce the Duck is played by an oboe...

Louie the Cat is a clarinet. All right, he's not really a clarinet. He's just you know, he's represented by a clarinet...

The part of the Grandfather will be played by Don Amiche.
He... what?
Can't make it? Oh. Huh.
Okay, um, hmm, in that case, the part of the Grandfather will be played by, huh, a bassoon...

Three French horns play the part of... uhm... three French horns... uh...

(The Wolf! It's the Wolf!) Right! The Wolf. Seymore the Wolf....

The kettle drum and bass drum represent the sub-machine-gun fire of the hunters...

And, of course, as always, the part of Bob the Janitor is played by the accordion.

Well, that's it for the introductions. And now, the story.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away... uh... Oh, excuse me...

Once upon a time I think it was last Thursday a boy named Peter opened the gate and went out into the big green meadow.

On the branch of a big tree sat a little bird.
All is quiet, said the bird.
Holy cow! A talking bird!, thought Peter.

Just then, Bruce the Duck came waddling by. Bruce was very happy that Peter hadn't closed gate and he decided to check out the deep pond in the meadow.

Billy the Bird saw the Duck, so he decided to fly down and pick an argument with him.

What kind of bird are you if you can't fly?, he said; to which the Duck cleverly replied, I'm a duck! Stupid!

They argued and argued. The Duck swimming in the pond. The little bird skipping along the shore. Sorry.

Suddenly, something caught Peter's eye and you know how painful that can be. It was Louie the Cat crawling through the grass.

Louie the Cat thought, if the Bird is busy arguing, I'll just grab him.
So quietly, Louie crept towards him on his velvet paws.
Well, his paws weren't really velvet... they were, you know, kind of like velvet.
It's a, what d'ya call it? Uh, a 'metaphor'. It's a metaphor, get it?

Look out! Look out! Look out! Look out! Look out! Look out! Look out! Look out! Look out!, advised Peter.

The bird immediately flew up into the tree... while Bruce the Duck quacked at Louie the Cat... from the middle of the pond.

Louie the Cat walked around the tree and thought, is it worth climbing up so high, or should I just send out for pizza?

Grandfather came out. He was all bent out of shape because Peter had gone into the meadow.

It's a dangerous place. If a Wolf should come out of the forest, then what would you do, huh?
Peter did not answer, because after all, it was a rhetorical question.

Boys like Peter are afraid of a lot of things, like Nuclear annihilation and flunking algebra, but they're not afraid of Wolves.

But Grandfather got Peter in a headlock and dragged him home, telling him that he was grounded and that he couldn't watch any cartoons for three weeks.

Just then, as luck would have it, a big, mean, hairy, ferocious, snarling, carnivorous Wolf, huh, did come out of the forest!
But I guess we all knew that was coming. I mean, the story is called, 'Peter and the Wolf'.
We couldn't very well call it, 'Peter and the Wolf' if there wasn't any wolf, could we? Huh, that would be really stupid.

The Cat was up the tree in a twinkling; which is about, oh, 2.3 seconds.

Bruce the Duck quacked so hard that he propelled himself backwards and up onto dry land.

For those of you taking notes, this is a fine practical example of Newton's First Law of Motion, which clearly states that for every action there is
an equal and opposite reaction.

But no matter how quickly Bruce tried to waddle away, he couldn't escape Seymore the Wolf who was wearing his best pair of tennis shoes.

The Wolf was closing in on the Duck. It was getting closer and closer and closer and then and then....

He got 'em! He got 'em! Oh no! Oh, it was terrible! Oh, oh I can't believe it! Oh! The humanity! The humanity! Oh my God! Ahh-hoh, oh, huh.

And then with one big gulp, Seymore 'wolfed' him down.

Um, let me recap the story briefly in case you just walked into the room: Louie the Cat was sitting on one branch.
Billy the Bird was on another branch, not too close to Louie, and Bob the Janitor was at home defrosting his refrigerator.

The Wolf walked around the tree so many times that he made a small trench.

Meanwhile, Peter was standing behind the closed gate, videotaping everything that was going on.

Suddenly Peter got an idea. He ran home and got a big spool of his grandfather's unwaxed dental floss.

One of the branches of the tree that the Wolf was circling was conveniently stretched out over a high stone wall.

Peter scaled the wall, lickity-split, which is even faster than a twinkling.

Then he grabbed the branch and climbed onto the tree.

Peter said to Billy the Bird, I want you to fly down and circle around the Wolf's head to distract him, but be very careful he doesn't catch you and
bash your skull in and tear out your lungs and chew you up into itsy-bitsy teeny-tiny little pieces.

Okay, said the bird.

Billy the Bird almost touched the Wolf's head with his wings while the Wolf snapped angrily at him. Go ahead, said the Wolf, make my day.

Come on, cut it out, snarled the Wolf, you're asking for trouble, Punk. But Billy the Bird just kept on harassing him.

Meanwhile, Peter made a lasso out of the dental floss and, carefully letting it down, caught the Wolf by the tail and pulled with all his might.

Feeling himself caught, the Wolf got really ticked off and started jerking back and forth.

Peter tied the other end of the dental floss to the tree and left the Wolf dangling in mid-air.
Hey, Big Bad Wolf, said Peter, why don't you come up here and get us now?

I would, said the Wolf, but, well, I'm kinda tied up right now.

Just then, some members of the National Rifle Association came out of the woods, firing their magnums, uzis and bazookas.

But Peter yelled, don't shoot. Billy the Bird and I have caught the Wolf. Now, let's take him to the Zoo.

Great idea!, said the hunters, and if he likes that, next week we'll take him to Disneyland!

Just imagine the victory parade. Peter was at the head.
But after a few minutes he was through and then the parade began with Peter at the very front.

After him, the hunters leading Seymore the Wolf.

Then Grandfather, and Louie the Cat, and finally, Bob the janitor who had to sweep up the whole mess.
Grandfather shook his head discontentedly, well, Peter, what if you hadn't caught the Wolf? What then?
Well, said Peter, he probably would have ripped out my intestines with his teeth.
Said Grandfather, I know that, you idiot. It was a rhetorical question.

Above them, Billy the Bird chirped proudly. Yeah, that's right. We bad. We bad.

Granfather decided that he'd had enough of the pond and the meadow and the whole stinking scene, so he ran off to Los Angeles and joined a Heavy Metal band.

And what about Bruce the Duck? Well, the Wolf had been in such a hurry that he swallowed him... alive!
Which means the gastric juices slowly disolved his body and he died a long, painful death.

However, you'll be happy to hear that just a few years later he was reincarnated as Shirley MacLaine.

And the moral of the story is... oral hygiene is very important. Make sure you see your dentist at least twice a year